Mud, mud glorious mud.

A few days of silence on the blog to let the full gravity of the mighty Patou Alpacas show team announcement sink in. I can hear jaws dropping as the giants of the UK alpaca world are brought to their knees in desperation, their plans for the futurity shattered in the black, brown and fawn categories. A years planning ruined in one quick revelation. Hardly worth going now is it?

(Yes the fantasy continues in my tiny little brain!)


Mud, mud, glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood, so follow me follow, down to the hollow and there let me wallow in glorious mud!


When I was at school we had an annual house song competition. One year we sang 'The Hippopotamus song' by Flanders and Swann from which the above opening chorus line comes.


Never in my life has it felt more appropriate and I find myself humming it every morning as I wade, yes folks the mud is now extremely sloppy and is closer in consistency to water, towards the alpaca feeding area to give them their breakfast. The alpacas charge up the field until they hit 'the somme' and then slow down dramatically as they gingerly make their way up the runway (slipway) to the feeding paddock. We then all squelch our way across to the ever decreasing grassy feeding area where breakfast is served. We then all slip and slide our way back to dry ground. This morning I heard muttering. I'm not sure who it was but someone was definitely muttering. The ranks of the mighty Patou are not happy. They have had enough of the mud. We have all had enough of the mud.


The mothers of the show team will be heading off on Wednesday as we begin weaning. They will be joining the small herd down the road in Tisbury belonging to our friend Liz who will be kindly looking after them for a couple of months. It will give them the opportunity to regain some condition and it will give us the chance to get on with some halter training. That should be fun in this mud! It's actually one of my favourite times of the year, time to bond with the little weaners. If we can get them out of the mud and onto some dry ground it will be fun.

And yes, the beds were changed.